The overall aim of this study is to examine the dynamic relationships between physical health status and assessments of health among Black and White adults. The questions pursued in this research focus on how the more extensive health problems of minority adults may affect health assessments and, perhaps, accelerate health declines as they age. Previous research suggests that Black adults may be more pessimistic in their health orientations, thereby being deterred from expecting and seeking health improvements from medical or health care interventions.
The aims of the project include: 1) examine the prevalence of health pessimism among Black and White adults once controlling for social class and financial adequacy; 2) model change in health status among Black and White adults over the course of the 15-year study; and 3) test the predictive ability of health assessments for identifying mortality risk. The research makes use of a 15-year panel study of a sample of adult Americans participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I: Epidemiological Follow-up Study. The subjects studied were first interviewed during 1971-1975 and reinterviewed in 1982-1984 and again in 1987 (N=6,931 at baseline). A prospective research design is used to evaluate how health status and change in health status affect and are affected by health assessments among Black and White Americans. In addition to racial differences, special attention is given to gender in identifying change in functional health status and health assessments.
| Shippee, Tetyana Pylypiv; Schafer, Markus H; Ferraro, Kenneth F (2012) Beyond the barriers: racial discrimination and use of complementary and alternative medicine among Black Americans. Soc Sci Med 74:1155-62 |
| Shippee, Tetyana P; Ferraro, Kenneth F; Thorpe, Roland J (2011) Racial disparity in access to cardiac intensive care over 20 years. Ethn Health 16:145-65 |
| Ferraro, Kenneth F; Shippee, Tetyana Pylypiv (2008) Black and white chains of risk for hospitalization over 20 years. J Health Soc Behav 49:193-207 |
| Schafer, Markus H; Ferraro, Kenneth F (2007) Long-term obesity and avoidable hospitalization among younger, middle-aged, and older adults. Arch Intern Med 167:2220-5 |
| Ferraro, Kenneth F; Thorpe Jr, Roland J; McCabe, George P et al. (2006) The color of hospitalization over the adult life course: cumulative disadvantage in black and white? J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 61:S299-306 |
| Ferraro, Kenneth F; Nuriddin, Tariqah A (2006) Psychological distress and mortality: are women more vulnerable? J Health Soc Behav 47:227-41 |
| Farmer, Melissa M; Ferraro, Kenneth F (2005) Are racial disparities in health conditional on socioeconomic status? Soc Sci Med 60:191-204 |
| Kelley-Moore, Jessica A; Ferraro, Kenneth F (2005) A 3-D model of health decline: disease, disability, and depression among Black and White older adults. J Health Soc Behav 46:376-91 |
| Kelley-Moore, Jessica A; Ferraro, Kenneth F (2004) The black/white disability gap: persistent inequality in later life? J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 59:S34-43 |
| Ferraro, Kenneth F; Kelley-Moore, Jessica A (2003) A half century of longitudinal methods in social gerontology: evidence of change in the journal. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 58:S264-70 |
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